Yesterday I spent the day with the most fabulous group of young people. They were great to work with and we had a good time saucing our way through the kitchen.
They made three mother sauces including Béchamel, Voloute, and Espagnole.
And you never know what might happen when you get a group of young people in the kitchen. Watch out for your fingers.....
They learned how to chop, preferably veggies not fingers!
And they made the most amazing sauces incorporating techniques for making a roux, using a mmirepoix for enhancing flavors and how to prepare a bouquet garni. From each mother sauce they made other sauces including a Cheddar cheese, poulette and mushroom sauces.
Their first success was a Béchamel Sauce or the basic white sauce
WOW that turned out good!! But keep stirring that sassy sauce.
I think they were quite impressed with their successes.
The second sauce was the veloute and to that they added sautéed mushrooms and parsley making it a poulette sauce. This was served over mixed vegetables and it was delicious. This is also very good with diced chicken added to make it a complete meal. Any left overs can be used the next day to make a chicken pot pie!
The last sauce, Espagnole is made by building layers of flavor with sautéed onions, carrots and celery (mirepoix) and simmering that in a beef stock with a bbouquet garni made of peppercorns, bay leaf and dried thyme. The sauce was reduced for 45 minutes but if we had time it really should have simmered for at least 2 hours. The sauce was served over ground beef and polenta. YUMMY.
Thanks to all the students! I had a great time. See you in November for our next class- Frying, sautéing and steaming. We will also tackle the 4th mother sauce, a Hollandaise Sauce.